"I remember a quote from one of the head Intel guys saying the only use they could think of for a personal computer was for a woman to store her recipes on."
Isn't that about all most people do with their computers anyway?
As has been mentioned, K6 is a registered name and K7 could easily be as well. And while the speculation about a future processor being named "K9" is amusing, that's not the reason the K7 was renamed.
The bottom line is that some market research was conducted, and people who heard "K7" associated that with the K6 (naturally). But the K6 is perceived as a low-end product. The K7 (excuse me: Athlon) is by no means a low end product. It runs faster than any intel processor at the same clock speed (much faster in floating point) and will be available at higher clock speeds to boot. AMD does not want anyone to think of the Athlon as a low end product for one second. It isn't.
In the end, it's probably best for AMD that they changed the name. Although, in my opinion, "Athlon" was a poor choice. Couldn't they have come up with anything better?
Here's an...interesting thought: What if you cloned yourself, and then raises your clone until it was about 20 or so. Then have some mad doctors (the best kind) cut out your clone's brain and stick your's in its place. Keep doing this and you could live forever. Just a thought.
The point is that other companies aren't doing what intel is telling them to. And intel really doesn't like that.
You see, the real issue (although the original article doesn't seem to mention it) is memory. VIA and others have been arguing for supporting a PC133 memory standard. Intel doesn't like this because they want everyone to move to DRDRAM (Direct RAMDBUS DRAM), while VIA and others are more interesting in DDR-SDRAM (Double Data Rate SDRAM). Intel says RAMBUS is great because it runs at 800 mhz. The slight problem is that it's only 16 bit. That means that 800 mhz RAMBUS has the same bandwidth as 200 mhz SDRAM. It's not that great an improvement. Plus, RAMBUS has some serious problems with high latencies.
PC133 is actually just the first step towards PC266, using DDR-SDRAM at 133 mhz. DDR-SDRAM is like conventional SDRAM only it transfers data on both the rising and falling edges of the signal, giving twice the bandwidth at the same speed. Plus, DDR-SDRAM doesn't have the latency problems of RAMBUS. In addition, it costs less and is more similar to SDRAM so the memory manufacturers can switch to making it more easily. If that's not enough, RAMBUS is a proprietary standard controlled by one company, and DDR-SDRAM is an open standard. Here's even more: DRDRAM has some serious yeild problems and intel is still working on some major bugs while DDR-SDRAM is almost ready for widespread adoption.
But intel has absolutely no plans to support DDR-SDRAM or even PC133 (Heck, there are rumors that even when they come out with a 133 mhz chipset they will run the memory at 100 mhz.). Perhaps it's because they've invested a lot in RAMBUS, or maybe because they are stubborn bastards who subscribe to the NIH (not invented here) philosophy. It's probably both, actually. But there are companies like VIA who are saying, "Gee, DDR-SDRAM is a LOT better. Why don't we use it?". This is making intel furious. They are used to having everyone in the hardware world do exactly what they tell them no matter how stupid it is. Increased competition has started to change this, and it's definately for the better.
Back to your K7 comments, this is very much an issue. The K7 may have a 200 mhz bus between the chipset and the processor, but the memory bus is only 100 mhz. This is simply because there is no 200 mhz memory. While future K7 chipsets will support RAMBUS (just in case intel wins and it's adopted), they will also support DDR-SDRAM. VIA made K7 chipsets certainly will, as will VIA made P6 chipsets. There is even a chance DDR-SDRAM will be supported on the old socket 7 platform if VIA releases a new chipset for it (It's not that unlikely. The K6-III will still be made and should go at least as high as 600 mhz in the future). Maybe common sense will prevail and the superior technology will actually win. Then again, with intel's marketing muscle, maybe not.
You want to get rid of legacy?
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Then the first thing you should do is eliminate that ancient x86 processor design. Hehe. I'd bet intel would love that. Of course, they are working on Merced, so maybe they have some sense. But I've yet to see convincing evidence that merced will be any faster than an Alpha, and it will certainly be more expensive.
I've heard people say that element 115 is supposed to be completely stable. I don't have any idea what they theoretical basis behind this is, or if this idea was thrown out, but I've heard it in multiple places. Can somebody enlighten me?
Then that 8 tons would be equivalent to about 2 pounds of uranium
Re:Tom's Hardware talks about it too
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Those "strange practices" are the best AMD can do. They have some excellent designs, but they just don't have the kind of production facilities intel does. Intel has something like 13 fabs. AMD has one. Plus, with this one fab they are making K6-2s, K6-IIIs, mobile K6-2s, mobile K6-IIIs, and now K7s (I believe the K7 chipsets are being made by a Taiwanese company). I'd like to see you do any better. Things will definately improve when AMD's massive new fab in Dresden, Germany is complete.
I agree. There are some things that I just couldn't find on Altavista or any other search engine, but when I tried it on google it was the first link listed. This thing is great.
It was at 75% when I cast my vote. Ahh, the power of the slashdot effect...
How about use IBM's Microdrive?
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I don't see the big benefit of using click. It only has a 40 meg capacity, that's not even an improvement. Why can't somebody make an MP3 player that uses IBM's microdrive technology? It has a 340 meg capacity! The thing is tiny. Although it's a bit expensive, it's worth it. Cost per meg is cheap.
Actually, there are some theories that the universe isn't expanding at all. I'm not saying that they're right, but here is the basic idea: According the QED, light does not always travel at the speed of light, it is just most likely to travel at the speed of light, and averages out to travelling at the speed of light. In normal circumstances, it travels at the speed of light as well as we can measure it. However, when dealing with extreme distances, such as the distances between galaxies, these slight variations in the speed of light add up, and the light wave spreads out. This actually increases the wavelength of the light, and causes the doppler shift which has been interpreted as meaning the universe is expanding. Isn't it interesting that the universe is supposed to be expanding faster further away? Maybe this is just the result of lightwaves stretching more over greater distances?
I come from a fairly wealthy town, so the High School is much better off than most schools. It's still pretty pathetic. We have a computer in every classroom. They are used for absolutely nothing. I mean nothing. The teachers don't even use them. We also have a couple computer labs. The one for foreign languages is filled with Apple IIe's that are used to run the most pointless software I've ever seen in my life. Wouldn't it make sense to put the computers that are being used for nothing in the classrooms in this lab? But then we wouldn't have a computer in every classroom... Now, like I said the school isn't that bad off. Quite frankly I don't see a big need for computers in foreing languages. The school actually offers a couple decent programming courses, including AP Computer Science, and the lab we use for these actually has pentium 133s in it. Of course, the school got these computers about 3 years ago, and all of them came with network cards. Because of administrative incompetence, in 3 years the school still hasn't managed to buy a couple hubs and some twisted pair cable to connect these computers, but that's another story. What's my point. I'm not sure. Personally I don't think that computers are that important to the school. The only reason they have any at all is because they want to look good. Don't get me wrong, I love computers. I go to the library every day during lunch to get on the internet. But really the only reason I do so is to keep up with slashdot. At least I'm getting a good education somewhere...
No...the K7 will use its own interface, named slot A. This is not rumor, it is fact. AMD has been demonstrating some alpha K7s for a while now. Slot A has the same dimensions as slot 1, this was done to make it easier for motherboard manufacturers making slot 1 boards to transition to slot A boards. But slot A is not slot 1, or slot 2. It uses the Alpha's EV-6 bus. By the way, although the 21164 Alpha is a socket based chip, the 21264 uses the exact same slot A interface as the K7.
I'm still in high school, but my AP Computer Science course teaches everything you mentioned there in C++. It's pretty sad that I'm getting a better education than some people do in college.
Can anyone who has Debian 2.1 on a CD tell me where they got it? I've looked at every single US vendor Debian points to on their page and the vast majority of them do not even acknowledge 2.1's existence. There are a couple that do, but you can only preorder it. Then there are a couple that actually have it, but they're charging $20 or more for something they got for free. Where can I get 2.1 now, at a resonable price?
Slashdot Mirror
"I remember a quote from one of the head Intel guys saying the only use they could think of for a personal computer was for a woman to store her recipes on."
Isn't that about all most people do with their computers anyway?
Check out the Athlon logo. There is the number 7 hidden in it. Seems like an AMD artist wanted to send a message.
As has been mentioned, K6 is a registered name and K7 could easily be as well. And while the speculation about a future processor being named "K9" is amusing, that's not the reason the K7 was renamed.
The bottom line is that some market research was conducted, and people who heard "K7" associated that with the K6 (naturally). But the K6 is perceived as a low-end product. The K7 (excuse me: Athlon) is by no means a low end product. It runs faster than any intel processor at the same clock speed (much faster in floating point) and will be available at higher clock speeds to boot. AMD does not want anyone to think of the Athlon as a low end product for one second. It isn't.
In the end, it's probably best for AMD that they changed the name. Although, in my opinion, "Athlon" was a poor choice. Couldn't they have come up with anything better?
Here's an...interesting thought: What if you cloned yourself, and then raises your clone until it was about 20 or so. Then have some mad doctors (the best kind) cut out your clone's brain and stick your's in its place. Keep doing this and you could live forever. Just a thought.
Hehe
Actually, it's my understanding that M$ tried move hotmail to NT, but NT just couldn't handle it so they moved it back.
The point is that other companies aren't doing what intel is telling them to. And intel really doesn't like that.
You see, the real issue (although the original article doesn't seem to mention it) is memory. VIA and others have been arguing for supporting a PC133 memory standard. Intel doesn't like this because they want everyone to move to DRDRAM (Direct RAMDBUS DRAM), while VIA and others are more interesting in DDR-SDRAM (Double Data Rate SDRAM). Intel says RAMBUS is great because it runs at 800 mhz. The slight problem is that it's only 16 bit. That means that 800 mhz RAMBUS has the same bandwidth as 200 mhz SDRAM. It's not that great an improvement. Plus, RAMBUS has some serious problems with high latencies.
PC133 is actually just the first step towards PC266, using DDR-SDRAM at 133 mhz. DDR-SDRAM is like conventional SDRAM only it transfers data on both the rising and falling edges of the signal, giving twice the bandwidth at the same speed. Plus, DDR-SDRAM doesn't have the latency problems of RAMBUS. In addition, it costs less and is more similar to SDRAM so the memory manufacturers can switch to making it more easily. If that's not enough, RAMBUS is a proprietary standard controlled by one company, and DDR-SDRAM is an open standard. Here's even more: DRDRAM has some serious yeild problems and intel is still working on some major bugs while DDR-SDRAM is almost ready for widespread adoption.
But intel has absolutely no plans to support DDR-SDRAM or even PC133 (Heck, there are rumors that even when they come out with a 133 mhz chipset they will run the memory at 100 mhz.). Perhaps it's because they've invested a lot in RAMBUS, or maybe because they are stubborn bastards who subscribe to the NIH (not invented here) philosophy. It's probably both, actually. But there are companies like VIA who are saying, "Gee, DDR-SDRAM is a LOT better. Why don't we use it?". This is making intel furious. They are used to having everyone in the hardware world do exactly what they tell them no matter how stupid it is. Increased competition has started to change this, and it's definately for the better.
Back to your K7 comments, this is very much an issue. The K7 may have a 200 mhz bus between the chipset and the processor, but the memory bus is only 100 mhz. This is simply because there is no 200 mhz memory. While future K7 chipsets will support RAMBUS (just in case intel wins and it's adopted), they will also support DDR-SDRAM. VIA made K7 chipsets certainly will, as will VIA made P6 chipsets. There is even a chance DDR-SDRAM will be supported on the old socket 7 platform if VIA releases a new chipset for it (It's not that unlikely. The K6-III will still be made and should go at least as high as 600 mhz in the future). Maybe common sense will prevail and the superior technology will actually win. Then again, with intel's marketing muscle, maybe not.
Then the first thing you should do is eliminate that ancient x86 processor design. Hehe. I'd bet intel would love that. Of course, they are working on Merced, so maybe they have some sense. But I've yet to see convincing evidence that merced will be any faster than an Alpha, and it will certainly be more expensive.
I've heard people say that element 115 is supposed to be completely stable. I don't have any idea what they theoretical basis behind this is, or if this idea was thrown out, but I've heard it in multiple places. Can somebody enlighten me?
Then that 8 tons would be equivalent to about 2 pounds of uranium
Those "strange practices" are the best AMD can do. They have some excellent designs, but they just don't have the kind of production facilities intel does. Intel has something like 13 fabs. AMD has one. Plus, with this one fab they are making K6-2s, K6-IIIs, mobile K6-2s, mobile K6-IIIs, and now K7s (I believe the K7 chipsets are being made by a Taiwanese company). I'd like to see you do any better. Things will definately improve when AMD's massive new fab in Dresden, Germany is complete.
I agree. There are some things that I just couldn't find on Altavista or any other search engine, but when I tried it on google it was the first link listed. This thing is great.
It was at 75% when I cast my vote. Ahh, the power of the slashdot effect...
I don't see the big benefit of using click. It only has a 40 meg capacity, that's not even an improvement. Why can't somebody make an MP3 player that uses IBM's microdrive technology? It has a 340 meg capacity! The thing is tiny. Although it's a bit expensive, it's worth it. Cost per meg is cheap.
Actually, there are some theories that the universe isn't expanding at all. I'm not saying that they're right, but here is the basic idea: According the QED, light does not always travel at the speed of light, it is just most likely to travel at the speed of light, and averages out to travelling at the speed of light. In normal circumstances, it travels at the speed of light as well as we can measure it. However, when dealing with extreme distances, such as the distances between galaxies, these slight variations in the speed of light add up, and the light wave spreads out. This actually increases the wavelength of the light, and causes the doppler shift which has been interpreted as meaning the universe is expanding. Isn't it interesting that the universe is supposed to be expanding faster further away? Maybe this is just the result of lightwaves stretching more over greater distances?
WinChips really aren't optimized for windoze. That's just a name they came up with. It's marketing, nothing more.
I come from a fairly wealthy town, so the High School is much better off than most schools. It's still pretty pathetic. We have a computer in every classroom. They are used for absolutely nothing. I mean nothing. The teachers don't even use them. We also have a couple computer labs. The one for foreign languages is filled with Apple IIe's that are used to run the most pointless software I've ever seen in my life. Wouldn't it make sense to put the computers that are being used for nothing in the classrooms in this lab? But then we wouldn't have a computer in every classroom... Now, like I said the school isn't that bad off. Quite frankly I don't see a big need for computers in foreing languages. The school actually offers a couple decent programming courses, including AP Computer Science, and the lab we use for these actually has pentium 133s in it. Of course, the school got these computers about 3 years ago, and all of them came with network cards. Because of administrative incompetence, in 3 years the school still hasn't managed to buy a couple hubs and some twisted pair cable to connect these computers, but that's another story. What's my point. I'm not sure. Personally I don't think that computers are that important to the school. The only reason they have any at all is because they want to look good. Don't get me wrong, I love computers. I go to the library every day during lunch to get on the internet. But really the only reason I do so is to keep up with slashdot. At least I'm getting a good education somewhere...
No...the K7 will use its own interface, named slot A. This is not rumor, it is fact. AMD has been demonstrating some alpha K7s for a while now. Slot A has the same dimensions as slot 1, this was done to make it easier for motherboard manufacturers making slot 1 boards to transition to slot A boards. But slot A is not slot 1, or slot 2. It uses the Alpha's EV-6 bus. By the way, although the 21164 Alpha is a socket based chip, the 21264 uses the exact same slot A interface as the K7.
I'm still in high school, but my AP Computer Science course teaches everything you mentioned there in C++. It's pretty sad that I'm getting a better education than some people do in college.
Can anyone who has Debian 2.1 on a CD tell me where they got it? I've looked at every single US vendor Debian points to on their page and the vast majority of them do not even acknowledge 2.1's existence. There are a couple that do, but you can only preorder it. Then there are a couple that actually have it, but they're charging $20 or more for something they got for free. Where can I get 2.1 now, at a resonable price?